The Kill Society

“Everyone who didn’t join up … well, the pope there can tell you all about it.”

I nod to the oxygen tank.

“What’s with the wheezing gaff?”

Cherry puts the respirator over her mouth and makes a silly face at me. She lowers it and says, “I’ve been a few places and done a few things since the last time we saw each other, Jimbo. I couldn’t take a chance on anyone recognizing me.”

“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t rat me out to the Magistrate today.”

She frowns.

“I’d never do that, ZaSu. The world—even this one—is a lot more fun with you in it.” She taps her ash onto Traven’s floor. “Besides, if things go belly up here, maybe Sandman fucking Slim can step up and actually save me this time.”

She blows smoke at me. I wave it away.

“As much of a pain in the ass as you are, you know I would.”

She points at me, but looks at Traven.

“Is he all right? What’s with the Boy Scout act?”

“We’ve been talking,” says Traven. “He’s trying to be a better person and deal with some of his mental issues.”

Cherry stares at me, a little horrified.

“He’s nothing but mental issues. You can’t fix him. You do and you’ll fuck us all. But especially me. I killed for this piece of shit today. He owes me.”

I limp to the camper door.

“That reminds me. If it wasn’t Daja who tried to kill me, let’s see who it was.”

“It’s Megs,” says Cherry. “Didn’t you smell him? You burned him up good, Jimmy. He looks like a s’more that fell in the fire.”

I get out of the camper and look at him. Cherry and Traven follow me.

We’re at the far edge of the camp, away from anything important. A nice place for an ambush. I look at the pile of meat on the ground.

“It’s Megs all right.”

He moans quietly, leaking blood.

The ground leading back to the main camp is a flat surface, and the desert floor is too hard to leave footprints. Nothing useful there. I kneel down and look Megs over.

“You two have been around. Does Lobster Boy look like he could get here under his own power?”

“I doubt it,” says Traven.

“Definitely not,” says Cherry. “I saw him at center camp. He was a goddamn basket case.”

I reach back in the camper and pull out the piece of Megs’s arm that came off in my hand. Toss it down next to him.

“That means someone helped him here. Carried or wheeled him over. We would have heard a vehicle.”

Cherry gives Megs a light kick.

“Making friends wherever you go, eh, Jimmy?”

“It’s Mr. Pitts,” I say. “If you want rescuing when the time comes, that is.”

Cherry drops the Malediction and crushes it under her shoe.

“Speaking of the time,” she says, and pulls the respirator up over her chin. “Time for me to get back to the peanut gallery. There’ll be rumors about you by now.”

She winks and pulls the respirator up over her face.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone what a shy flower you were in the face, so to speak, of free pussy. A rare commodity in Hell, Jimmy, but you’d remember that if you hadn’t gone soft living the good life back home.”

“I’m bleeding and I just got murdered, Cherry. Give me a fucking break.”

“Keep an eye on him for me, Father,” she wheezes in her mask. “If anyone’s going to kill him down here, it won’t be Daja.”

“It will be you?” says Traven.

Cherry gives us a fingertip wave and heads back to camp.

Traven looks at me.

“Well. That was unexpected.”

“That’s one word for it.”

He looks down at Megs. “What are we going to do with him?”

I reach down and snap his neck. He blips out of existence a moment later.

Traven turns away.

“Please warn me the next time you’re going to do something like that.”

“Sorry.”

He looks back at where the body was a second before.

“There’s a lot of blood.”

“We’re going to need to cover it up.”

I look around.

“We’re close to the base of the mountain. I remember loose soil down there,” I say. “I’ll bring some over and cover the blood when things settle down.”

“You’ll need help.”

I look around for something else to cover the blood with, but there’s nothing.

“You’re in good with the Magistrate,” I say. “I won’t fuck that up. If things go wrong, it should be me they come after.”

“That’s not fair.”

“We’re in Hell. I just got knifed by a charcoal briquette and molested by a witch. Talk to me some more about fair.”

“At least let me be your lookout,” says Traven.

“Fine. But not now. When most of them are asleep.”

We go back into the camper. Traven settles back down on his cot and I lie on my coat on the floor with a couple of pillows. It’s not exactly comfortable, but it beats sleeping anywhere else at this crummy summer camp.

He says, “This has been an unusual day.”

“And we’re just getting started.”

“I know.”

“Good night, Father.”

“Whatever happens, it really is good to see you.”

“You too. Now shut up and let me rest awhile.”

A minute later Traven sits up.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”

“When I broke Megs’s neck? Don’t sweat it. Think of it like someone putting a dog out of its misery. Only he really, really hated the dog.”

“Maybe I was wrong earlier,” he says. “Maybe I can get excommunicated in Hell.”

“Pull that off and I sure as shit will let you eat my sins.”

AT LEAST ONE thing goes right. We get enough dirt to cover the blood without anybody seeing us. The rest of the night, though, Traven tosses and turns.

A few hours later, I wake to the ground shaking and a roar like Mechagodzilla. I run outside, but it isn’t an earthquake or a metal Kaiju invasion. It’s just the camp waking up and getting ready to move out. Vehicles gun their engines. Trucks maneuver out of the camp to clear a path for the cars. The semis and construction equipment get chained to the double-length flatbed carrying the tarp. It looks like complete chaos at first, but the moves are smooth and practiced. The havoc is one big, well-oiled machine.

Traven comes out of the camper and stands next to me.

I say, “Is it like this every day?”

“Not every day. We’ve camped for as long as three days while scouts have gone out surveilling the territory.”

“Hell’s own alarm clock.”

“We’re not in Hell, remember?”

“Right … I’ve been wondering about that. Why search the Tenebrae?”

He sits in the camper doorway with an old book in his lap.

“We go where the Magistrate leads us and whatever it is he’s looking for led us out here.”

He’s holding a book.

“Doing a little light reading?”

“I wish. This is an old Hellion treatise on ley lines, holy sites, and places of power down here.”

“If it points out any Dairy Queens let me know. I could sure go for a sundae.”

He gets up and heads to where Daja, Cherry Moon, and the Magistrate are studying a map spread out on the hood of his Charger.

I shout after him.

“The Magistrate seems like the Holy Roller type. Could the tarp be some kind of church on wheels?”

Traven stops.

“I doubt it. From what he says, it has to do with the war in Heaven.”

“Which side is he on?”

Traven pauses.

“Sometimes I’m not sure. He’s so full of righteous anger. Still, I like to think that, despite some of his methods, he’s one of the good guys.”

“Define ‘good guys.’”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

“That’s not a comfort, Father. You could at least give your flock comfort.”

He makes the sign of the cross and ends it by giving me the finger. It actually makes me smile.

“That’s more like it,” I say.

“I’ll see you in a little while.”

“A little while” is relative—the four of them go over the map for a long time. Cherry throws stones. Traven consults his books. The Magistrate plots a course using a pile of shiny Hellion tools that make it look more like he’s dissecting something than reading a map. After a half hour of good old-fashioned geomancy, the Magistrate hops onto the hood and then the roof of the car like a goddamn gazelle. As he scans the horizon with a telescope, the others gather up the map and tools he scattered all over the ground. A minute later he jumps down just as gracefully as he got up. I didn’t expect that. I’d pegged him for a desk warrior. Serves me right for assuming too much too fast. I wonder what other tricks he can do?

By now, all the vehicles are ready to go. Traven heads back in my direction while Cherry goes back to her ambulance and Daja fires up her Harley. The Magistrate guns the Charger. As it belches black smoke a small cheer goes up. He pops the clutch, turns a donut, and blasts out into the desert at the head of the havoc. When Samael was Lucifer he could have learned some tricks from this guy. The prick knows how to put on a show for his people.

As the rest of the vehicles pull out, a Mohawked Hellion woman heads straight at me. I shift my weight, ready for a fight. Instead, she walks right past me and unlocks the cab of the pickup truck. When Traven makes it back, she comes around and locks his old book in the camper. She tosses me a set of keys, then she peels out after the others.

I look at him.

“I might be in charge of the library and records, but it doesn’t mean I’m trusted with them,” he says.

“He thinks you wouldn’t run off without your books.”

“Exactly.”

“Would you? Run off? I need to know if you’re with me when I see an opening to get clear.”

“Do you think that’s possible?”

“I don’t know, but I want to be ready. You with me?”

“Yes,” he says, but he’s not exactly excited about the prospect. I’m worried, but this isn’t the time for a heart-to-heart. Most of the havoc has already moved out and the half-dozen members left as our watchdogs are looking antsy. Traven wraps his bandanna around his face and steps onto his hellhound. I go back to the burned-out pickup and try the key.

Damn. It starts.

We head out after the others with our babysitters hot on our heels.

WE TRAVEL FOR hours across the Tenebrae’s monotonous plains. Imagine an optical illusion where you’re on a flat, endless road. There are mountains in the distance on both sides and low peaks in the far distance. And nothing ever changes. Nothing moves. Nothing gets any closer or farther away. You know you’re moving because you can feel the motion, but nothing ever fucking changes.

I’ve heard of souls who refused to enter Hell getting lost in the Tenebrae and wandering for years before going flat-out crazy. That’s a whole new level of fucked. Dying, escaping Hell, then finding yourself someplace worse. If the Church had afterlife travel agents, they could make a fortune. Pay now, then later see the most colorful views of damnation from a double-decker, air-conditioned tour bus. Stop for lunch at the damned soul deli, where you can try Phil, your racist neighbor, on whole wheat. Or roast hot dogs over the lava pits where crooked politicians and show-business accountants do synchronized-shrieking shows every … well … forever. Don’t forget to tip your driver on the way out or you’ll end up with the other stingy bastards, growing gold teeth and pulling them out with pliers for eternity while other stingy dumb-asses pound them into coins with their faces. Where do you think Hellion money comes from?

The other part of this Bataan death march across nowhere: I’m still in this goddamn fried truck. There’s no material left on the seats, so I’m riding bare springs all day. My bruised ass feels like it’s welded to a demon pogo stick.

I’m a little worried about Father Traven. Has he gone a little too native? There’s things you have to do to survive, but that doesn’t mean you have to believe whatever mad shit your torturer is feeding you. I don’t think he’d rat me out, but I’m worried that maybe he’s got a bad case of Knights Templar and has actually bought into the idea of a holy crusade. I’ll have to keep an eye on him. When I make a break for it, I’ll drag him by his heels if I have to.

But Cherry is the one I’m really worried about. She’s too crazy to predict what she’ll do. I mean, she wasn’t exactly stable when she was alive, but after she died she did a deep dive into unstable. She refused to leave her dead body for a long time and lived as a jabber—an animated corpse—clawing her way through the dirt and filth under L.A. When I finally got her to leave her body, she lived in the bombed-out version of L.A. in the Tenebrae. She played a sexpot ghost for a while and I don’t know what else since I’ve last seen her. And now she’s here with a whole new act. I don’t think she’d deliberately let on who I am, but who knows what twisted stuff she might blurt that could make things a lot more difficult for me.

When my mind drifts back to Candy and home, I push the thoughts away as hard as I can. I’m dead. There’s no going back now. None that I can figure, at least. But fuck everyone down here if they think I’m staying. All that matters is getting through this mess and figuring out what to do after that.

I lose track of the time on the plains. Bits of paint flake off the truck’s crisped body and stick to my face and hair. That’s fun. Traven rides beside me. He seems like a real natural. Maybe I’m selling him short. Maybe he likes being out of the library. He used to help us track bad guys back home before he died. Maybe this is like that and I should ease up on the guy.

About the time I’m wondering which of the babysitters I’m going to run off the road so I can steal their vehicle and save my aching ass, there’s something new on the horizon. The ruins of a town. Of course, everything is ruins in the Tenebrae, but this looks more ruined than most. I wish I could get a look at the Magistrate’s map. If I could place the town, maybe I could navigate my way back to Hell. That’s something else to think about. The map.

Up front someone, probably the Magistrate, sends up a red flare. The havoc spreads out across the plain, zeroing in on the town. Me and Traven are at the rear of the joyride, between the main havoc and the trucks pulling the tarp. When the flare goes up, our babysitters peel off to join the main group. I look at Traven and point out into the open desert. He shakes his head. He’s right. I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s nowhere to run to yet. Sit tight and learn how the havoc works. Then disappear at the moment of maximum confusion. For now, though, I hit the gas. At least if we stop somewhere, maybe I can get out of this damned truck for a while.

By the time us stragglers reach the others, they have the town surrounded. But no one is going Hell’s Angels on the place yet. They’re just sitting in their cars, gunning the engines and looking like hard desert bandidos. It isn’t exactly a stretch for them.

At a signal from up front, all the engines cut off at once. I pull to a stop and shut mine down. While the dust settles, I crawl out of the driver’s seat. My ass and back ache like someone gave me a baseball-bat massage. I stretch, trying to work the kinks out, when Traven comes over.

“What now?” I say.

“It depends. It isn’t always the same.”

“But this is where the havoc gets to havocking.”

“Maybe today will be different.”

“Sure. Maybe today.”

We’re pretty far back in the pack, so I climb on the hood of the truck trying to see something. I can’t make out much besides a crowd gathered at the edge of the town. Nothing happens for a while. I think the Magistrate is having a nice chat with whoever runs the burg. After all the driving and the last day of abject terror and confusion, frankly, it gets kind of boring. Traven climbs up on the truck with me.

“See anything?” he says.

“The Wizard gave the Scarecrow a heart. I hope he has something for Dorothy.”

Traven points into the distance.

“What’s that?”

There’s a plume of dust winding its way through the havoc in our direction. A few seconds later I hear the roar of a bike engine. A sweaty soul on a dirty Hellion Ducati stops next to the truck.

He pushes up his goggles.

“You Pitts?”

“Last time I checked.”

He moves up on the seat.

“Get on. You’re riding bitch.”

“What makes you think that?”

He looks up at me.

“The Magistrate wants to see you right fucking now. So get on, bitch, before you get us both in trouble.”

“When you say it nice like that how can I resist?”

I climb down and head over to the bike. The rider is a big bare-chested sweat pig. To be clear, I mean he’s literally a sweaty, upright pig—busted snout-like nose and everything. I stand there for a minute looking over his wheels.

“You checking out my ass? Get on, faggot.”

“Sure.”

I move like I’m getting onto the seat, but instead I swing my leg around and kick him in the back of the head. He falls forward and dumps the bike. I drag his sweaty ass off and haul the Ducati upright. I didn’t hit him hard enough to knock loose anything essential, but he’s going to have a long, embarrassing walk when he comes to. Traven comes over but doesn’t say anything. He just raises his arms and drops them again like he’s exhausted. I give him a little salute, gun the bike, and head for the front of the pack.

No one tries to stop me as I weave through the havoc. When I spot the Charger, I open up the throttle and hit the brakes just right to land in a nice stoppie up front.

Daja looks at me blankly while the Magistrate frowns.

“Where is Billy?”

“Taking a nap.”

The Magistrate comes around the car.

“Then he is alive?”

“I’m not that dumb.”

“I’ll go check,” says Daja, but the Magistrate lightly touches her arm before she can get on her Harley.

“No. I want you here with Mr. Pitts and myself.”

He waves to a couple of riders in an El Camino covered in Nordic runes.

“Bring back Billy and the father,” the Magistrate says, and they peel out.

I know the Magistrate added Traven to his delivery list just to fuck with me, so I brush it off. Don’t give him the satisfaction or the ammunition.

When the car is gone, the Magistrate gestures for me to follow him over where the residents of the town are gathered. Daja comes, too, hooks her arm around mine, and—smiling like a blushing bride—drags me with her.

The Magistrate waits by a small group of the least pathetic souls in town. That said, they look like they spent the night in the drum of a cement mixer. Tattered clothes hanging off their bodies in gray rags. Dust in every crease on their desiccated faces. They sag in front of the havoc like kids who know they’re about to get a spanking. Another twenty or thirty souls are bunched behind them. They look even worse.

The Magistrate says, “I am a student of human nature, did you know that, Mr. Pitts?”

“It beats beekeeping, I guess.”

He smiles infinitesimally.

“I sent Billy to you knowing exactly what you would do.”

“You sent one of your own people to get his ass kicked? That’s not the way to build brand loyalty.”

“Everyone in the group has their role,” he says. “Some are more demanding than others.”

“You mean, me turning out Billy’s lights was some kind of prize?”

“I told you he wouldn’t understand,” says Daja. “He’ll never understand.”

“She’s right,” I say. “I never got fractions either.”

“Come now, Mr. Pitts. Everyone is a good student with the right teacher and the proper motivation,” the Magistrate says.

He pulls me away from Daja and the three of us go to the group of pathetics. The town council, local Shriners, or something.

“Hold up your hands,” says the Magistrate.

When I do, he puts a corner of the map into each of my hands and lets the rest fall open, facing the pathetics. Great. I have the damned map, but I’m on the wrong side of it.

The Magistrate pulls one of the town council over and gestures to the map. The ragged bastard raises a hand and says something in a language I don’t understand. The Magistrate answers him back in the same language. When he gets fed up with contestant one, he pulls contestant two forward. She’s dressed in a filthy evening gown like she’s heading for drinks at the Copa with the Rat Pack. Again, the Magistrate points to the map and the woman answers. Again it’s in a language I don’t understand—but different from contestant one’s—and again he answers her. How many languages does the bastard speak?

He takes a piece of parchment from a pocket of his duster and shows it to the group. A couple touch it, then point into the distance. The Magistrate speaks to each of them, switching languages when he has to without missing a beat.

Daja stands with me behind the map.

“Having fun, sweetheart?” she says.

“Always with you, dear. Did you book the cruise next year?”

She looks behind us, searching for the El Camino.

“You won’t last that long.”

I turn to her.

“Bet I outlast you, Nancy Drew.”

The Magistrate reaches over and pulls me back into place.

“You might not even make it past today,” she says.

I give her a look.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that line.”

She leans over and whispers, “I didn’t say you were going to die. Just not make it.”

Before I can ask her what the hell she’s talking about, the Magistrate hands the map to Daja and she folds it up.

“Mr. Pitts, would you join us?” he says.

I go over as he pulls the town bigwigs he’s been talking to aside.

“I have tried reasoning with these people,” he says. “I have tried cajoling them and even promising rewards, but none has taken it upon themselves to be cooperative. What do you think of that?”

I look over the sad sacks. Shrug.

“Maybe they don’t know anything. Look at them. I’m surprised they can even talk. Where the hell are we?”

“On an important ley line that passes right by this town.”

“What makes you think they know that?”

The Magistrate brightens and sweeps his hand across the crowd.

“Because we are in a town of holy people. Priests. Nuns. Rabbis. Mullahs.”

I point at the woman in the evening gown.

“Then why is she dressed like Joey Heatherton?”

“She has been here so long that her vestments rotted away, the poor dear. She had no choice.”

“And you think these losers know something about your crusade?”

“I told you I was a student of psychology. I know they know something.”

“You’re a goddamn mind reader, too?”

“The Magistrate knows something about everything. He’s a genius,” says Daja, a proud kid who knows that her daddy can beat up your daddy.

“Fine. Say you’re right,” I say. “Maybe you should give these poor slobs some food or water. Then maybe they could think straight.”

“They have gone without for too long. The shock to their system might send them to Tartarus without us lifting a finger. What a waste of scant resources,” he says.

“Why are you telling me all this? Why am I even here?”

“This is my domain. What exists here without knowledge exists here in defiance.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“He’s calling them liars,” says Daja.

I look at her.

“Again I ask: What does any of this have to do with me?”

The El Camino pulls up behind us. Billy staggers out. Daja brings Traven over. An old military truck, its rear covered by a canvas awning, pulls up next to the El Camino.

“Like these people, the Father is a holy man,” the Magistrate says. “But unlike them, he is not a liar. Is that not right, Father?”

Traven nods.

“Of course, Magistrate.”

He doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s scared.

“What does the Bible have to say about liars? I believe the Revelation to Saint John mentions them,” says the Magistrate.